"How She Will Decide" forum

AARP, which is marking its 50th Anniversary, and iVillage, the first and largest community of women online, today hosted hundreds of engaged, diverse women for the groundbreaking "How She Will Decide" forum, taking place just 4 days before Super Tuesday and providing a real-time pulse check of the issues that will most affect this year's presidential race.
Overwhelmingly, participants at the forum feel economic issues are the most important factor guiding their decision on which candidate to support on Election Day - with 54 percent of the audience members reporting that they do not have a 401(k) or similar retirement savings account. This underscores the findings of an iVillage fielded Roper poll conducted last week, which found that over half of surveyed women cite "having enough money to live on" as their biggest concern when thinking about financial security later in life.

Other issues that prove top-of-mind with women include healthcare (10 percent), the Iraq war (15 percent) and national/homeland security (12 percent).
"Women's issues will play an increasingly more important role in the elections in the United States," said Nancy LeaMond, AARP Group Executive Officer and Director of the Divided We Fail initiative. "With an election that is already making history in terms of gender, the candidates are focusing on the issues women maintain are most important. This poll shows that women are worried about their financial security above a host of other issues."
In addition, the survey shows that 62 percent of surveyed women believe that they will play a larger role than past years in deciding the 2008 election and 28 percent of female respondents say they have no idea for whom they will vote in the 2008 presidential election.
"It's never been more important to understand what women think than right now, and each day, we at iVillage see our community come together to discuss key issues - like healthcare and the economy - that are so critical for all of us," said Linda Boff, Chief Marketing Officer, iVillage. "Today's forum took that dialogue and brought it into the larger conversation."
The interactive issues forum featured a diverse focus group of hundreds of women and nationally recognized panelists, and marked the first of the 50th Anniversary events for AARP. The telephone survey was conducted January 18-20, 2008 with 1,004 respondents nationwide, of which 524 were female.
Complete forum video will be posted later today at http://video.ivillage.com/player/?fid=32464

About AARP:
AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that helps people 50+ have independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial and affordable to them and society as a whole. AARP does not endorse candidates for public office or make contributions to either political campaigns or candidates. We produce AARP The Magazine, published bimonthly; AARP Bulletin, our monthly newspaper; AARP Segunda Juventud, our bimonthly magazine in Spanish and English; NRTA Live & Learn, our quarterly newsletter for 50+ educators; and our website, AARP.org. AARP Foundation is an affiliated charity that provides security, protection, and empowerment to older persons in need with support from thousands of volunteers, donors, and sponsors. We have staffed offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

About iVillage:
iVillage Inc., a division of NBC Universal, is the first and largest media company dedicated exclusively to connecting women at every stage of their lives. Ranked the #1 online destination for women with 29.9 million unique visitors (comScore MediaMetrix), iVillage.com offers an authentic community infused with compelling content from experts on health, parenting, pregnancy, beauty, style, fitness, relationships, food and entertainment. The site's interactive features include thousands of message boards and a wide variety of social networking tools, allowing women around the world to connect, share ideas, and seek advice and support about everything from fertility to fashion.

Established in 1995, iVillage's brand extensions include iVillage UK, iVillage Total Health and owned sites Astrology.com, GardenWeb and gURL.com, in addition to the Newborn Channel. The company, acquired by NBC Universal in May 2006, is based in New York.